Acts 7:59
"And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, `Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.'"
We've said before that the only appropriate address for Him today is either Christ, or the Lord Jesus, Christ Jesus or the Lord Jesus Christ, or the Lord, and LORD which is to say Master but don't ever approach Him as just Jesus because it is not a scriptural or spiritual application. Looking again at verse 60:
Acts 7:60a
"And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, `Lord,...'" Now it's the same way with the Apostle Paul with a couple of exceptions. We know in I Thessalonians chapter 4 he will say, "For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again..." But most every place else he uses the term Lord Jesus Christ, or Jesus Christ but never Jesus alone and only here because it relates to His earthly placement in time and season or epoch. It's just not appropriate now after His resurrection. Now come over to chapter 9 and we'll pick up a description of Saul of Tarsus in his hatred for anything connected to the followers of Jesus Christ.
Acts 9:1a
"And Saul, (the one we just read about in chapter 7) yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter..." Now remember, we mentioned earlier that the Judaic religious people had clout with Rome. They had quite a bit of clout. In fact, it was just their own obstinacy that brought down the temple and city of Jerusalem by Titus in 70 AD. But the Romans had a lot of respect for Judaism because it was an old religion and a well accepted one. The reason they persecuted the Christians so was because it was something totally new and so the Romans treated it like a sect or cult or something as not being vital or needful. But Judaism had the respect of the Roman authorities, because it was considered one of the ancient religions.
Also remember that the Hebrews from one end of the Roman empire to the other would send vast amounts of money to the Temple as offerings, and never was a dollar lost. Never did they lose an ounce of those gifts because Rome recognized and protected it. Now, as we said before, they also had enough clout with the Roman Government that they could demand extradition of Hebrews that they wanted to deal with in their own religion, and bring them back to Jerusalem. And that's why Saul had the authority to go Damascus which was outside of Israel, and yet Rome permitted them to do just that. Now read on:
Acts 9:1,2
"And Saul, yet breathing out threatening and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest. 2. And desired of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues, (see he wasn't going to bother the Syrian population, all he wanted were those Hebrews who had embraced, trusted in, the Messiah.) that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem." Saul was vicious, he had no mercy. He didn't care whether they were young or old, or men or women; if they had embraced Jesus of Nazareth as their Messiah, then Saul's attitude was, "They're not worth living, get rid of them, they are nothing but a threat to my religion." Have we got the picture? Now come back to the Book of Galatians. And the man never got over that for hurting so many. We imagine as he suffered all of the ramifications of his apostleship he must have constantly remembered it's coming around. He was shown and told of that he must suffer to bring this message out, and he was coming around. Now verse 13.
Galatians 1:13
"For ye have heard of my conversation (manner of living) in time past in the Jews' religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted (how I chased them to the ends of my authority) the church (assembly) of God and wasted it:" What does wasted it mean? Utterly destroyed wherever he went. Now he had evidently made so much headway in the area of Jerusalem and Judea that he thought he had pretty much cleaned house, and there wasn't anything left to do so he said, "Okay, High Priest, let me go to Damascus, because there are still some of these people up there and we know where they are." A lot of those Jewish believers who had to flee Jerusalem, for fear of Saul of Tarsus and the other religious persecutors, did migrate up into the area of Galilee and some as far north as Damascus. Now verse 14. Not only was Saul a religious zealot who had no mercy, who had no compunction in putting those Jewish believers to death, on top of that he was motivated for money and its lust. Does that ring a bell?
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